locked to } luthir

[graveflowers]

[She doesn't actually know if he uses the phone, poor old fashioned dear, but she is exhausted and dehydrated because she is somehow still crying and, to be perfectly honest, she is terrified of falling asleep. She has nothing left to stop her from giving it a shot.

She needs it, and she was so focused on what everyone else needed -- what Jade needed and Rafael and Des and Myri -- that she pushed it aside because she felt bad that she can't figure out how to get this comfort from anyone here and because death is what she is good at so she let herself take over to save anyone else having to do it.

But now it's settled on her shoulders, the reminder that she has no idea what she is doing in this case and she needs help. His help, specifically, because as much as he flusters her and makes her stomach riot with butterflies, he calms her down and centers her, balancing her when she feels off-kilter and confused. And she would really love to be calm, for at least a moment.

So she curls up in on of the chairs in the waiting room, tugging her feet up on to the seat. She dials and listens to it ring and really hopes he is around to talk to her. She twists her wrist to glance at her watch, it is really early or middle of the night there -- dyslexia is not exclusive to letters, sadly, and she doesn't have a digital watch -- but she... doesn't actually care.]

Comments

[luthir]

Well, I imagine he's speaking of your heritage in some fashion, although given that gods are immortal, it isn't as if you're in line to inherit anything in much of a literal sense.

[graveflowers]

[There's a noise like hrmph in reply and then a plaintive:] Why me?

[luthir]

There's nothing you did that might have drawn attention to yourself from... divine sources?

[graveflowers]

Maybe?

[She groans, but somehow manages to tell him her idea of sharing energy with Jade and trading their necklaces without drifting off on some rogue tangent or muddling it up completely. Its an actual proper explanation for once, complete with her new realizations that it wasn't the necklace draining Jade of energy but her lack of memories, turning her to a shadow.]

I was right, though, when we were -- [She has to pause there and take a breath.] -- saying goodbye, Jade asked me to bury the necklace with her. She said something about it was twisted, it wasn't just that her mother's magic had spoiled, something was wrong about it.

But the necklace broke. [She is clinging to that like it will suddenly make the dreams stop, even though she doubts it will.] Maybe it's like a key though, once the door is unlocked...

[luthir]

Or perhaps whatever darkness leaked into you from such contact with it is merely lingering. It's been only a few days... there's a chance it will fade in time. [ he doesn't sound so convinced though. in fact, he sounds entirely grim. ]

[graveflowers]

So a key then. [Sir, we need to work on your comforting skills.] A key that broke so, effectively, I am screwed.

I can't... I can't do this.

[luthir]

I certainly wouldn't assume that much. If he can't get what he wants from you, if you show no signs of being interested, he'll likely turn his eye elsewhere...

And there are protections against the divine, to try to keep their powers at bay. I'll speak to Solace about it.

[graveflowers]

[The problem, though, is that she is interested. It is irrational and she knows it, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to not feel powerless again.]

'kay. What am I supposed to do 'til I get back then, not sleep? Pretty sure that's suicidal if the Taiwanese gamers are any indication that lack of sleep kills.

[luthir]

If I were in your case?

I might beseech Sehanine to shield your dreams. In fact, I'll be praying to her myself for the same.

[graveflowers]

Thank you.

I think I might be too irrationally angry, that she didn't save Jade, to ask for help myself. Might be kind of... rude, you know?

[luthir]

[ carefully: ] It isn't for us to try to fathom the minds of the gods. It doesn't mean you can't feel angry with them, however, on occasion.

But it is unlikely that there was much she could have done to directly intercede.

[graveflowers]

I know. I do, I mean I said it was irrational. I know -- better than a lot of people -- that death is part of life, I had a really knowledgable tutor. [She means Hades. She sighs, but it turns into a huge yawn she tries ineffectually to stifle.] I just wish I had someone to blame instead of something so huge just being happenstance.

[luthir]

Perhaps it's not. But perhaps it is better for some things to go unknown.

[graveflowers]

If it were anyone else telling me that the answer would be mostly profanity.

[But she's in love with him so he gets a pass. Plus she is tired. And... it, annoyingly, has a ring to truth to it.]

[luthir]

I understand that it's the last thing that you want to hear, but... I fear too much for where curiosity could lead you to humor you in the wrong direction, where such dark forces are concerned.

[graveflowers]

I'm not going to go running after him in the middle of the night. I can't just leave everyone like that, not after everything and not now. [She frowns at her scribbled handwriting, adding little doodles to her notes.] But you know I can't just let it go. I... [She lets the beginning of an explanation trail off. If he wants it she trusts that he'll ask.]

[luthir]

Might endanger more than yourself, in quest of this knowledge. There may be other avenues to learning what you seek to know.

I'll help you find them, if that's what it takes.

[graveflowers]

[Right, like she is going to endanger him. Sir, please.]

I don't want knowledge, I want sleep. And to not feel... helpless.

[luthir]

Have you tried speaking with Wynn, about the latter?

[graveflowers]

Yeeeeah, no. [Her sigh is very, very tired.] I'm used to it, actually -- but I usually know its going to end, and when. Now I'm just...

[luthir]

Used to which of the two?

[graveflowers]

[Evaporated - Ben Folds]

Well, I am used to not talking to Wynn, but I meant the helpless feeling. [She huffs out a breath and tries to figure out how to easily word why exactly she is used to it.] The myths about my mom and grandma used to be how they explained the seasons, barring physics and the tilt of the earth. Mom would spent four months in the underworld and Ceres' grief would make vegetation wither and die and Mom being away would strip the life from the world. But its not just the world that gets lifeless, her dear children get the benefit of being... faded.

[She should stop there but she needs someone to understand why she needs these dreams to stop and she can't put this on Myri, she won't, so the rest of the words spill out in a slightly panicked babble like if she can just get him to understand... but she's never been very good at explaining herself and she's never dared verbalize any of this before.] You caught me on a good day, when we met, but I was high off adrenaline and almost being flattened on a train so I guess there is that. It's not like that, normally, not in winter...

I already feel like I'm lost, like losing Jade broke some string holding me down and I'm just going to drift away and no one, no one will notice. But winter is so much worse, because there isn't a reason behind it. It's not grief or loss, it's just... it's like something is broken, like part of my soul or whatever is ripped out and I'm just left standing there on the edge of a chasm and it's too much effort to move in either direction, but I don't give a shit which way the wind blows. And it hurts, everyday, to breathe and to exist and to pretend like I'm not falling apart. It's just too much.

So what if this god doesn't stop? What if he doesn't give up? I can't go to sleep every night knowing he could be there taunting me, throwing all my mistakes back at me. Do you know what that feels like? It's like, it's like I am drowning, like I'm being crushed beneath the weight of it, helpless, and I'm just watching my friends die, my family, and I can't do anything about it. I won't... I won't be able to survive that.

[luthir]

A'maelamin. [ the word is exhaled on a held breath, full of sympathy and tenderness. ] I will never let him drown your light.

It is the height of the summer, which is the most time we might ask for. I swear by all the gods, and by my blade, that we will find some way to break his hold on you well before the first frost of winter.

[graveflowers]

Okay.

[She was going to say something else; an apology or some reassurance, but it gets stuck and that is all that comes out, broken and childlike.]

[luthir]

I wish I had more to give you tonight than words.